"Tell him that his father wishes to speak with him at once," said the pater, authoritatively.
The trainer's manner became more respectful. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Larned," he said, firmly, "but the team can see no one before the game. The coachers are giving them a last talk now."
"Do you mean to tell me," the pater demanded, hotly, "that I can't see my own son?"
"Exactly, sir," replied the trainer, inexorably. "Just at present he's the full-back on the Yale eleven, and nothing else goes. And now, Mr. Larned, I'll write you out a pass to the grand stand, and then I must run back to the boys. After the game you can see your son aplenty—if there's anything left of him." And with this cheering suggestion, Mike scribbled a few words on a card, which he handed to Mr. Larned, and retired.
The latter stood speechless for a moment. That a power on the Street, a man whose name was among the great ones of Manhattan, should be treated thus cavalierly, and that by a hired trainer—
"Why, it's preposterous!" exclaimed the pater to himself; nor was his ruffled self-esteem soothed when he read the scrawl on the card: "This is Teddie Larned's father. He wants to see the game. Mike."
But then it proved an "open sesame," and the ushers, after reading the magic words, received him with the most marked attention, passed him along through the crowds of ordinary people who were not fathers to famous full-backs, and finally seated him in a front box which was specially reserved for the parents of the players—though Mr. Larned did not know this.
Next to him was seated a tall, ruddy-faced man, wearing the slouch hat which the old generation of Westerners still cling to. He was beaming with jollity, and joined a deep bass to some of the college songs that Yale voices were chanting all around him.
"Well, to-day's the day we watch the youngsters distinguish themselves," he remarked, cheerily, to Mr. Larned, during a lull in the cheering that was surging up and down the grand stand.
But before the pater could rebuff this friendly overture, as in his present state of mind he felt inclined to, a roar of cheers swept up and down the field, and the speaker sprang to his feet, waving his slouch hat frantically. Out on the brownish-green field trotted eleven shock-headed youths clad in dirty, heavily padded mole-skins, cleated shoes, and canvas jackets, frayed and torn, but each with the great varsity "Y" on its breast. An oval brown ball was hurled and caught with, what seemed to the pater's inexperienced eye, wonderful swiftness, and then as the ball rolled along the ground each man took his turn, as it came near, in sprawling down on it in a most comical manner. Suddenly it was passed nearly thirty yards, straight as an arrow into the arms of a short, chunky youngster, with an extremely dirty face, who seemed carved out of a solid block. With almost a single movement—so deftly was it done—the ball was caught and poised in both hands for the tiniest fraction of a second. Then came a hollow thump as the dropped oval was punted. Up, and up, and out in a tremendous parabola, almost the length of the field it soared. "AA! AA!" howled the Yale tiers. "Get on to that punt! What's the matter with Teddie Larned?"